In the beverage bottling industry, mainly two types of container treatment machines are employed, namely continuously working container treatment machines, e.g. rotary machines, and discontinuously working container treatment machines. Both types of machines have advantages and disadvantages. The greatest advantage of discontinuously working container treatment machines is that the container treatment elements which sometimes have to be supplied with working media, e.g. filling valves, are located stationarily at one place and do not have to be moved during the container treatment. The fact that, for example, rotary transmission leadthroughs are completely eliminated in discontinuously working container treatment machines, results in a considerable cost advantage and increased process security. However, the supply and/or discharge of the containers must be also timed, which is not only complicated but aggravates an optionally desired connection of the discontinuously working machine and at least one continuously working machine in a block. In continuously working rotary machines, all treatment elements are often arranged on a rotating carousel, which, however, requires complex and expensive rotary transmission leadthroughs for medium supply, e.g. with energy, filling medium, beverage compressed air and the like, however permits a continuous supply and discharge of the containers. For these reasons, there is a considerable demand for a simple connection of discontinuously working container treatment machines and continuously working container treatment machines in a block in a container treatment plant. Continuously working container treatment machines can here also be transport devices, such as feed and discharge conveyors.
In container treatment plants, e.g. consisting of a blow molding machine that continuously supplies containers and e.g. a filling machine connected with it in a block and discontinuously treating groups of containers, as well as corresponding conveyor means, the continuous throughput of the continuously working container treatment machine, e.g. the blow molding machine, optionally dictates the total throughput of the container treatment plant. During each cycle standstill of the discontinuously working container treatment machine, however, one container is accepted or discharged. This interruption caused by the cycle standstill must be compensated in view of the desired continuous total throughput. Accordingly, the feed and the discharge conveyor would have to work in a cyclic operation such that they can compensate the throughput loss of containers caused by the cycle. For this, e.g. a complicated buffer storage would be required, and/or, as a result of the interlinkage between a continuously working container treatment machine and a discontinuously working container treatment machine, the feed and discharge conveyors each would have to temporarily process an essentially higher throughput than the total throughput.
From DE 197 37 697 A, a container treatment plant is known in which a discontinuously working preform injection molding machine is linked with a continuously working blow molding machine via a continuously driven discharge conveyor. The discharge conveyor is embodied as a transfer starwheel to which two rotatably drivable injection molding rotors are associated in the preform injection molding machine, where one of them each produces a group of preforms as treatment station and is standing still in the process and disconnected from the discharge conveyor, while the other one is driven in synchronism and coupled with the discharge conveyor, then works as conveyor means and supplies preforms to the discharge conveyor individually. This principle is complicated both with respect to its construction and control because main components of the discontinuously working container treatment machine are required twice and must be controlled individually. Moreover, structurally complex and fault liable rotary transmission leadthroughs for the plastic mass are required in the injection molding rotors.
From DE 10 2004 053 663 A, a container treatment plant with several machines linked via conveyor means is known, of which in case of a malfunction, for example a labeling machine temporarily works more slowly than a continuously working blow molding machine linked to it, or even has to be temporarily stopped. Between two linked machines each, dynamic buffer storages are incorporated in conveyor means which intermediately store, deliver or deliver subsequently corresponding to throughput differences between the machines. This concept is technically complex, causes long dwelling times of the containers in the respective buffer storage, and only permits a linkage of two machines each.